


That One Time in Toronto

by yrfrndfrnkly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1 instance of unintentional/unknowing misgendering, Bata Shoe Museum, Biblio-Mat, Bloomers doughnuts, Coming Out, Established Relationship, Genderfluid!Tonks, Glad Day Bookshop, Historical shoes, Merril Collection of Original Science Fiction & Fantasy Art, Other, Sci-Fi fan!Fleur, Shut up Wesley!, Sobriety, Supportive Partners, The Monkey's Paw, The Stick, Toronto, Tourism, agender (questioning stage)!Fleur, bookwormery, figuring shit out in your 40s, moderate/increasing emotional distress about coming out/actualising true gender, queer sober dance parties, respecting pronouns, the TTC, urban raccoons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26073160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yrfrndfrnkly/pseuds/yrfrndfrnkly
Summary: It's hard to be Fleur, dealing with ever increasing gender confusion, while partnered with everyone's favourite genderfluid icon, Tonks. With cameos by The TTC Stick and a mighty urban raccoon.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21
Collections: Flonks Fest





	That One Time in Toronto

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [aibidil](https://aibidil.tumblr.com) for the lightning quick and insightful beta and for feeling feelings with me always. Solid thanks and huge hype also to [flonksfest](https://https://flonksfest.tumblr.com) for hosting a fest dedicated to this unmitigated power couple for another year!
> 
> I wrote this as a little love missive to Flonks and to Toronto. But I took a few liberties with the cityscape of Toronto, so please don't @ me for getting the general location of the IMPROVED Neighbourhood Watch signs wrong or for making Glad Day a retailer of a range of pronouns pins--I mean, for all I know they sell those in addition to books, but I also may have made it up for the fic :)
> 
> I tried to wrap together all of the first three prompts for this one. Sadly, I couldn’t figure out a way to make it otherworldly. 
> 
> I have no ownership or affiliation with any of the characters or places in this fic. I own only my feelings about it all.

_Saturday 21 December 2019_

"Tickets! Money! Passports!" Tonks yells, scurrying around the flat in their best impression of Edina Monsoon, complete with imitation dire Eddie hair. It's their traditional last-minute-before-Portkeying maneuver, and it makes Fleur laugh every time, even if Fleur's matching Patsy leer doesn't enjoy the benefit of a sudden towering bouffant. Impersonations are just one of those things Fleur has come to accept Tonks has the edge with. 

"Thanks, babe," Fleur says in a low, Patsy-ish voice, grabbings Tonks round the waist as their Edina scurry devolves into a stumble. With Tonks steady on their feet once more, holding out their two passports, Fleur accepts the precious EU-issue one. 

"All a go?" Fleur picks the weekend rucksack up off of the floor and swings it over one shoulder.

"Aye." Tonks changes their hair back to their signature magenta buzzcut while reaching into the massive pocket of their garish, shiny, orange winter coat to pull out the Portkey UK Magical Travel Control issued to them with a set activation time last week. They offer Fleur one end of a battered copy of _The Wealth of Nations_. Fleur grabs the other end of the vile refuse, and Tonks grins over the Portkey. "My body is _ready_." 

Fleur has never doubted anything less. Tonks's full time job is queer dance partying—quite literally. Fleur's about to make a sarcastic-but-loving remark to that effect, but the Portkey activates and whisks them across the Atlantic, and the almost entirely benign remark dies en route.

*

"Union. Union Station. Doors will open on the right." The voice calling out over the tannoy is worryingly sedate. Fleur offers Tonks one arm in order to usher them safely off the subway, long ago having accepted that Tonks's preferred time to deal with life admin is while transiting, effectively making Fleur Tonks's handler when they're walking. Tonks's eyes are glued to their mobile and they're texting one-handed, faster than a Firebolt (for the last six years, Tonks's New Year's resolution has been to train their left thumb to text as fast as their right thumb) while Fleur guides them through the unknown station. It's a good job that the weekend rucksack is light—streamlined for a low-maintenance weekend away—or Fleur would be shooting apologetic looks at all the people they're already barely managing to dodge.

Neither of them has ever been to Toronto, and Fleur takes a couple of wrong turns trying to get out, unaided by the seemingly omnipresent construction blocking off corridors here and erstwhile exits there. Tonks, texting while muttering about how Marika "had _one job._ ONE!" need never know about Fleur's lackluster subway station navigation skills.

"Oh! It's cold!" Tonks shivers when they finally make it outside and are hit by the chilly early winter air. Reluctantly pocketing their phone, presumably mid-remonstrance, they do up their zip.

"Remind me whose idea it was to throw a happening in Canada?" Fleur rejoins. "In winter?"

"And a very happy solstice to you, too, lover." That earns Tonks a lighthearted eye-roll from Fleur. Only Tonks's unique Puff-brand sarcasm could manage to communicate a genuinely pleasant seasonal greeting. Tonks's levity is only part Puff today, though; Fleur knows they're also transcendently excited about tonight's long-awaited happening. They've been planning it for months.

"Our friends in the brisk north deserve a good hootenanny as much as anyone," Tonks says, as Fleur takes in the surroundings outside the station, quickly accepting that absorbing the sight of various samey-looking skyscrapers is not the best way to discern the way to their hotel. 

"Skyscrapery," Tonks observes as Fleur opens up Waze. "Bit like London but less…" They wrinkle their nose in contemplation, apparently trying to settle on the right word. "Cute."

Fleur has seen precisely one bit of one street so far, but it supports Tonks's point. A bus rumbles by and it's pretty bland. Fleur thinks it _might_ , once have been red, mostly? But it looks like more of a sickly grey, covered in what Fleur presumes to be urban road dust and salt. Plus, only one deck. "Maybe other parts are cuter." Fleur shrugs, checks the app once more and points towards the intersection the bus just crossed. "That way."

"Engage, Bones!" Tonks says, grabbing the straps of their rucksack and adjusting it in a sign of readiness. The motion unbalances Tonks slightly, and Fleur steadies them, links their arms together, and heads… well, _that_ way. Fleur doesn't bother pointing out that Tonks's quip blurs TOS and Next Gen, or that Bones is the ship's doctor, not the navigator, because: 1) Fleur is the Trekkie, not Tonks; 2) at about twenty-eight Fleur accepted that, aside from Andromeda, who'd got Fleur into Star Trek in the first place during a rained-out family holiday, most people aren't too fussed about canonical correctness; 3) and honestly, it's just cute that Tonks tries.

So Fleur just internally acknowledges Bones and Chekov for their respective contributions to the Enterprise and leads Tonks down the street. Front Street, apparently. 

"I detect notes of warm garbage," says Tonks, not even looking up from their phone where they are, most likely, giving Marika a really charming, textual dressing down for not doing whatever her 'one job' was.

It does smell sewery. "Maybe other parts of the city are cuter _and_ less rank," Fleur hopes aloud, nose scrunching. Relievingly, they quickly leave the sewer smell behind, but things look more or less the same until they hang a left after a few blocks. At first it doesn't look any cuter, but soon they can see water ahead and…well…

"I bet it's nice in spring," Tonks says generously.

"Or summer. Or fall," Fleur appends.

It is a bit grim. Everywhere the curb is streaked with the grey and white remnants of salt, and there's grit everywhere in a way that is just sad. Plus, the overcast day has plunged the whole lakefront into shades of grey.

"Anyway, we're not here for a beach vacation." Tonks adopts a deep, faux-serious voice: "We're here... to _dance_." They draw out the 'a' to a deep 'ahhh' and Fleur knows that by the time they check in and drop their bags in the hotel room, Tonks will be watching the Coincidance video to get psyched for the happening they've been planning for the last three months.

It's the eighth one of 2019—the most Tonks and their team have planned in one year since Tonks started Puff Haps. Fleur is super proud of the business Tonks has built, and doubly so that they quit the Aurors to do it. Truly, Tonks's happenings are the most fun anyone—Muggle or magical—will ever have in a twelve-hour span. No one attends without having a night to remember. Tonks has a great reputation; plenty of queer people travel to whichever cities Tonks and their team select for their next Puff Hap. They work hard to nurture a safe space, and a fun space, and the queerest space you'll ever have the privilege of being in. 

But over the last couple of years—Fleur grimaces inwardly at the thought—the haps have become a bit emotionally taxing. There's no point thinking about that, though. Fleur just wants to relish seeing so many happy sober queer people enjoy a space just for them, to support Tonks enthusiastically, and to dance with them all night, so why be a Negative Nigellus? 

Pointless.

*

Up in their hotel room, Tonks is already on the bed bobbing their head and singing along to the Coincidance, while Fleur drops the rucksack onto the desk and pulls up some hipster app to guide tourists to niche restaurants and cafés. "What time do you need to be at the venue?" Fleur asks, clocking the current time at 10:30am EST and scrolling through a truly admirable number of dim sum joints. _For later,_ Fleur thinks, in the mood for something sugary.

"Sun goes down at 4:43, so I'm thinking like…" Tonks sucks some air through their teeth, and Fleur _knows_ they're trying to figure out the very last possible minute they need to arrive. "Better say two o'clock. I want to make sure we're well clear of any Muggle event staff so I can cast the requisite spells."

Fleur nods approvingly. After picking up bedbugs in 2011, Tonks started warding their event spaces against bedbugs, lice, and, for good measure, ringworm. That or get rid of their signature Giant Pillow Heap, which, Tonks maintains to this day, "is crucial for resting and integral to general good vibes."

Tonks has spent the last nine years homing in and expanding their Puff Haps. The first happenings were all in Manchester, where Tonks and Fleur spend half their time. In their first year after getting sober, Tonks was disgusted to discover the lack of dry events for the discerning queer dance enthusiast. They singlehandedly trebled Manchester Pride's dry and drug-free events in 2010, and from there started running an unaffiliated event every two months or so. As it turned out, Tonks wasn't the only dry, queer dance enthusiast in Manchester. Or London. Or Bristol. Or Dublin, Cairo, or Seoul. Or, if the sold-out event is anything to go by, Toronto. It wasn't long before they hired a small full-time organisational staff and got to working with events-planning crews in cities all over the world. (Tonks's favourite thing is leaving unionised 'temp' event staff in their wake.) But their annual Solstice events are always the biggest whups on the calendar. People rave about how _magical_ Puff Haps are, and they aren't wrong, even if the magic is mostly to keep the fancy, flavoured tonic waters from going flat, to give the dancefloor extra give to spare the feet, and to prevent Tonks from catching bedbugs again while enjoy a cheeky, restive cat nap in a communal heap of cushions.

Puff Haps are Tonks's passion, but Fleur is passionate about Tonks and thinks the joy of watching Tonks succeed, and have fun while they're at it, is probably similar to how Tonks happily attends launch events for Fleur's latest sets of drapey, billowing black garments, or watching Fleur rewatch favoured episodes of DS9 or rush to their shared home office to grab sticky notes to flag emotionally devastating parts of Octavia Butler novels. Fleur's enjoyment in watching Tonks's work unfold used to be unadulterated. Lately though…well, maybe things Fleur doesn't want to dwell on have adulterated it slightly.

But nevermind that. Fleur just keeps scrolling, looking for something that will satisfy the sugar craving deep within.

"Food first?" Tonks asks, and it's one of those non-question-questions designed to give food the urgency it deserves.

"Fuck yes. I've found a place that sells vegan doughnuts that are supposed to be massive."

Tonks flashes Fleur a thumbs up. "How far? I'm rav."

"Forty-five minute walk or a thirty-five minute streetcar." 

If Tonks considers asking to head somewhere closer, they're silenced by the utter yearning in Fleur's voice upon the revelation that: "They have a rose pistachio one!"

*

They're on a very long streetcar slowly making their way towards rose pistachio doughnuts. It's kind of nifty and sci-fi looking, despite the annoyance of unbuttoning, rebuttoning, and unbuttoning again on a loop as the streetcar warms up between stops only to be overtaken by a freezing blast of air whenever someone gets off or on, which is often.

It's worth it, though. For doughnuts. 

The streetcar lurches forward a bit as they once again cross an intersection and come to a stop. 

"Weird." Tonks points to the front of the car, where the driver has left their little nook and hopped out of the vehicle. "What the fuck?" Tonks turns to look quizzically at Fleur, who is equally baffled.

The driver is carrying a giant stick.

"Is this like, some kind of… Canadian custom?" Tonks tries, reaching.

A dude with long hair sat in front of them (who has the audacity to be out in this cold in a damn _hoodie_ ) laughs and turns around. "You could say that; check it out."

Fleur and Tonks stand up in their seats to look through the front window, where they see the driver ostensibly digging the stick into the pavement. 

"She's changing the track to make a turn," the dude tells them, looking profoundly amused.

"You're fucking kidding me." Tonks looks positively full to bursting with kitschy joy, and tries to snap a photo on their mobile, but the business with the stick is over as quick as it began, and the driver is back in her chair. "Damn, missed it."

"You witnessed a true Toronto sight, there," the dude says, mock philosophically.

"They seriously do that for every turn?" Fleur sits back down while the car rounds the corner.

"Hahaha! I wish. But no, the tracks are set up for the usual routes; The Stick is just for when there are minor diversions and cars take an alternate route."

"Thanks, new friend." Tonks beams at the dude, holding up a gloved hand for a high-five.

"Visiting from England?" The dude slaps Tonks's hand and his voice hesitates over placing their accent.

"By way of France." Tonk beams at Fleur. "She's French." Fleur winces internally, but smiles. It's fine. With beak-out-Veela ferocity, Fleur flame-throws the inner voice that insists on saying: _Tonks wouldn't_ knowingly _do wincey things._

Tonks and the dude chat for a few minutes, until the streetcar reaches his stop and he bids the two of them a good vacation.

After a few moments of quiet, Tonks turns to look at Fleur, seriously. 

Fleur sees it coming a mile away. "Fleur, we have under forty-eight hours in which to snap a photo of The Stick!"

*

After consuming two massive doughnuts (one rose pistachio and one birthday-cake flavoured) and leaving Tonks to their humdrum Canadian Maple one ("When in Rome!"), Fleur is feeling much more chipper (despite the fact that they left England not too long after having a late lunch). Once they leave the Doughnut place—Bloomers—they regroup. It's only 11:45, and they have ages before they need to head to the venue.

Despite the cold, they decide to walk around for a bit, since some light DuckDuckGo-ing (spending enough time chatting with Luna Lovegood at Harry's holiday dos over the years has given Fleur a healthy fear concerning data security) over doughnuts revealed they're in some kind of nifty shopping district with a curiosities shop not too far away. It's kind of Fleur's thing not to do a lot of pre-trip planning, but to wing it upon arrival wherever the next Puff Hap takes them. Turns out being part of a covert group of revolutionaries and dating Molly Weasley's son for a hot minute does wonders to foster a lasting detestation of over-planning. 

They start heading in one direction, chosen solely on the basis that it _might be in roughly the direction of tonight's venue._

_They've not been walking long before a street sign makes Fleur do a double take. Coming to a sudden halt and turning around, Tonks, whose arm is linked in Fleur's own, stumbles a bit with the sudden distraction of their handler._

_"Sorry, I just want to see that sign again." Fleur backtracks slightly, and there it is. A perfectly, normally creepy street sign reading:  
_

PROTECTED  
NEIGHBOURHOOD  
WATCH

Except below PROTECTED and above NEIGHBOURHOOD there's some outlines where two house decals have clearly been removed and overlaid by—

"Is that Mr Rogers?" Tonks asks, opening up the camera app on their phone.

"Yes!" Fleur enthuses, delighted to the very core by this wholesome and banterous act of vandalism.

Tonks positions them both under the sign and snaps a selfie, which they post to instagram with the caption, "It's a beautiful day in the gaybourhood!" plunking a French flag over Fleur's face in the image before posting, because despite their own habit of living on social media, they respect Fleur's position on online privacy.

After that, the trip to the curiosities shop is completely derailed as they rove arm-in-arm around what they come to learn is the city's West End for three hours, getting selfies of themselves with the Neighbourhood Watch Ghostbusters Ghost, the Hulk, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, OG Buffy, and, to Fleur's delight, Fox Mulder and personal fashion icon in an oversized suit, Dana Scully, before looping back to Bloomers for a further three doughnuts.

*

When they arrive at the venue at two o'clock, fuelled by delicious carbs, the local staff haven't yet arrived to start setting up. Fleur has been to enough Puff Haps to know that these things can actually be done fairly quickly by professionals, and Tonks is always sure to pay the kind of decent wages that the workers deserve.

"People'll start arriving in forty-five minutes or so, I reckon." Tonks snaps a photo of the un-set up space and does a quick hype post for their instagram followers before moving on to the serious business of finding the cabinets filled with the yoga mats, poofs, bean bag chairs, and cushions the venue promised, spelling them over into a heap in one corner of the large, open space, warding them against communicable parasites, kicking off their Blundstones, and diving in.

"Nap with me?" Tonks asks. "I'll set a thirty-minute alarm. I'm coming down from the second round of doughnuts."

Fleur smiles, de-boots, and plunges in for a cheeky pre-happening cuddle.

Their nap is interrupted not by Tonks's alarm—Marc Bolan wailing 'wahhhhhhhh' at the beginning of 20th-Century Boy—but by a clatter. Fleur, the big spoon, shoots up, followed almost simultaneously by a magenta-haired little spoon. Both of their heart rates calm when they realise the dry bar staff have arrived and are setting up tables. 

"Oh, hi!" One of them heads over to the cushion heap, seemingly nonplussed to find two adults in their 40s snoozing and spooning in an empty event space before an all-night happening. Fleur really appreciates the general chill of the dry set. 

"One of you Tonks, I hope?" Another thing Fleur appreciates about the people Tonks carefully selects to work with: they _never_ think it's their business to ask about Tonks's name, and Fleur knows that even if Tonks didn't have 'they/them' in their email signature and social media profiles, these kinds of folks wouldn't ask anyway, wouldn't presume. A slight heaviness weighs down the appreciation in Fleur's heart a bit. Tonks's queerness is extremely visible. And Fleur loves that about them. Fleur, on the other hand, is presumed straight by everyone, even, if the wank lads that try out Lines™ are any indication, when standing in a queue at the chemist's with Tonks buying dental dams. Fleur has blown people's fucking minds by informing them: "I don't date cis men." 

"Moi!" Tonks raises a hand and waves it before offering it to the event worker, and xie (according to xer lapel pin) introduces xerself as as J.

Tonks and J get right into things, relaying instructions to the arriving crew on where to set up tables and doing introductions between Tonks and the dry-bartenders. Fleur leaves them to it, flopping back into the pillows and rummaging around for the rucksack to nab the tablet and stylus and do a bit of free sketching. Fleur doesn't feel the need to be on the clock just because Tonks is, but seeing a city full of people running around in tyre-looking jackets to stay warm has sparked some inspiration. It's Fleur's professional mission as a designer to prove that shapeless garments don't have to be lumpy and uggo—it's all about draping huge amounts of black yardage decoratively, as far as Fleur's concerned.

*

It's not long before people begin arriving. It's not even five in the afternoon yet, but Fleur has learned that the dry crowd is extremely keen. Tonks has speculated that because there are so few really great booze and drug-free events, people want to capture every minute they can. It helps, of course, that Puff Haps have a reputation for never being harshed by people coming drunk or high. Fleur smirks in the queue for a fancy tonic—it's _almost_ as though everyone with such intentions magically realises they would rather be anywhere else just before they cross the lintel.

Before long, the venue is getting crowded. People who didn't come with their own are picking up pronoun pins from the bowl at the entryway, checking coats, grabbing dry cocktails, and already dancing. Fleur decides to get two drinks to start off with. Dancing is thirsty work, and there's no reason not to have a good night.

*

_Sunday 22 December 2020_

At nearly 6:00am Sunday morning, with the venue cleared of collapsable tables, the cushions, mats, poofs, and bean bag chairs all put away, the recycling and trash Vanished, the enchantments dropped, and the event staff patted, thanked for their enthusiastic work, and well paid, Tonks slides the venue keys through the keyhole, yawns the yawn of the danced-out badger, and pulls Fleur towards them by the waist for a light squeeze.

"Another hit," Fleur says, kissing Tonks on the side of the neck as they yawn again.

"Not too shabs, right?" Tonks beams—almost. They're probably too sleepy for a full beam.

"Not too shabs," Fleur agrees. 

"You have a good time?" Tonks asks as Fleur begins walking them down the street. It's pretty quiet before dawn on a Sunday, but they don't have the street to themselves, so they start walking aimlessly, hoping to see a cab or find a good alley to duck into to Apparate back to the hotel.

"I did," Fleur assures them. Sure, Fleur's been feeling a little...off. But Puff Haps really are a great time. Fleur likes chatting with randos, seeing Tonks in their element, dancing obnoxiously with an orange blossom tonic in one hand, taking breaks in the cushion puddle as needed. Fleur doesn't buy the con that a person has to love their work, but the fact that Tonks does is a big yay. Fleur loves designing; Tonks loves partying. It's a good scene, and Fleur knows they are both privileged to have this life.

"Tomoz—" Tonks pauses. "Later today? You know what I mean. Anyway, I just want to pop-round to Glad Day and thank them for the dope pins. But aside from that, it's all you, baby." Their tone is that of over-the-top 80s enthusiasm. "More doughnuts?"

"Nap first." Fleur spots a cab and waves it over.

*

At the hotel, Fleur fwumps onto the bed, still dressed, and Tonks follows suit, burrowing under one of Fleur's outstretched arms to achieve cuddle position.

"How long you need?" Tonks asks.

"Up in time for lunch and a couple fun stops?" Fleur asks, physically wiped out from an all-nighter filled with dancing, and emotionally toast from doing so in the company of people who live categorically as themselves.

"Perf." 

Tonks closes their eyes. So does Fleur. Within what feels like seconds Fleur can feel that warm, good-weird, almost-sleep feeling encroaching, but Tonks's voice breaks through it.

"Fleur?"

"Mmm?"

"You okay?"

Fleur takes a deep breath that Tonks, snuggled up close, can obviously feel. But Fleur can't help it. An internal voice that sounds a lot like Tonks whispers: _Say something. Say anything. Say how you're feeling confused and Tonks will help you make sense of it._ Fleur lets the breath out slowly and says, "Sleeping now."

A couple of hours later, Tonks, with their miraculous ability to wake up precisely when they want to, stirs under Fleur's arm. 

"Is your arm dead?" Tonks asks, wriggling out from under the arm in question.

Fleur flops the arm off the bed experimentally. "Sort of."

Tonks reaches out to massage the feeling back into it, and Fleur smiles at them, melting into their instinctive, caring touch. "Thank youuuu."

Tonks looks at Fleur, a slight hesitation in their expression. They've been together for twenty years and Fleur knows— _knows_ —that Tonks is trying to reconcile Fleur's brush off the night before with this unguarded moment. 

But Tonks, being Tonks, and just _getting_ how to navigate the stormy sea of feelings, keeps pawing at Fleur's bicep and asks lightly, offhand, "Where to today, oh Veela of my heart?"

That earns Tonks a sappy heart-feeling as Fleur sits up to grab the mobile from where it landed near the headboard amidst last night's collapse. 

After a few minutes, Fleur hands Tonks the phone. Tonks grabs it, looks down at it, and then back to Fleur. "Pinnacle."

*

After healthy portions of Sunday dim sum, they head to the subway.

As Fleur purchases a TTC day pass from a clerk, Tonks studies the map on the wall and whispers, "Fleur, look how quaint! They have _four_ subway lines, and two are like, wee babbie ones!"

"Museum. Museum Station. Doors will open on the left."

"That's us, bae." Tonks slides their arm into the crook of Fleur's elbow, propped out for them reflexively as they stand and exit the train.

Above ground, they walk a couple of blocks past a ceramics museum and the sharp, metallic edges pointing out of an old brick building that is apparently the ROM. Neither is their destination. Instead, they walk together into a far more unassuming building with a slanted roof and buy two tickets to explore the Bata Shoe Museum.

They head down to the basement to work their way up through the exhibits, and Fleur is transported to fashion heaven at the first sight of shoes in the case that winds around the edge of the room.

This level of the Bata is filled with medieval and early modern shoes of all shapes, sizes, materials, and geographical origins. Fleur's inner fashion historian kicks in full-tilt, and Tonks nods along with loving and earnest second-hand enthusiasm for Fleur's untamed fashion passion. 

Fleur is midway through a rant on medieval preachers' hatred of pointy shoes and bonfires of the vanities, pointing at a massive, long metal pair with relish when a pair of Venetian zoccoli beckons from another case. Then it's on to a quasi-lecture about the unmitigated power move of Venetian women learning to walk in giant platforms and towering over men.

Together they slowly make their way to the next floor, Tonks squeeing every so often over how badly they want particularly ostentatious pairs of shoes, and Fleur reading out panels to them, adding bits of relevant information here and there.

The next exhibit on an upper floor is smaller. Tonks beelines for the shiniest things in the room: a pair of red, sequin, mid-calf-length platform boots. "Fleur!" they call out, making the most of having the small room to themselves early on a Sunday afternoon. "Elton John wore these!" As Fleur rushes over, Tonks begins singing "Benny and the Jets" and snaps a photo for the gram. 

As it turns out, a number of the shoes on this floor are men's heels. Fleur also grabs a photo of Elton's boots, pressing the mobile flush against the top pane of the glass cube to snap a picture without glare. 

"What a lege," Tonks observes, still awed by the boots. "Wish I could rock platforms. Can barely manage to stay upright in a pair of topsiders…"

"I'll sequin you a pair of plimsoles myself," Fleur promises, grabbing their hand and winding away from the spectacular red boots and over to a single small shoe of pastel brocade. Fleur reads the placard. It's short: a concise write-up on how elite eighteenth-century men took to wearing heeled boots, and how the heel itself nodded to their social station—no manual labourer would be able to work in platforms, nevermind afford such snobbish fabrics. The elitism bums Fleur out. The shoe is magnificent looking—and bizarrely small for an adult foot—but _all of it_ kind of bums Fleur out, to be quite honest.

Tonks swoops in and rests their head on Fleur's shoulder, peering at the heeled shoe. They must be reading the placard, because they observe: "Weird how historically contingent gendered presentation is, yeah?"

"Yeah." Fleur just keeps looking, staring at the 250-year-old shoe with Tonks.

From behind, Tonks embraces Fleur gently around the waist—a move of comfort, not restriction. "Fleur?" Their voice is so quiet, a gentle knock on a door—nothing bargey or clumsy about it. It's incredible to Fleur—even after two decades—how much Tonks's external klutziness contrasts with their emotional aptitude. Fleur knows all of Tonks's inflections by heart—knows that Tonks is offering a gentle invitation, but one they will drop for now if that's what Fleur chooses.

Fleur wants to drop it. But also not. Fleur feels sixteen again, swinging from historical-shoe-based excitement to moody identity crisis is less than two minutes. This kind of wank shouldn't still be happening in one's forties, surely?

Tonks is still holding onto Fleur from behind. Fleur feels a wave of self-directed annoyance. The person on this whole planet probably best suited to have the conversation Fleur needs to have is currently holding Fleur in their arms. Fleur thinks about Harry's kids, and how annoying they've all become since coming of an age where they're determined to be misunderstood and mopey.

Fleur refuses to act like a fucking _youth_. And even thinking the thought, Fleur self-admonishes for reducing anyone's internal gender struggles (even Fleur's own) to teenage angst, no matter what form they take.

"I'm struggling." Tonks grips Fleur tighter—enough to make Fleur feel safe and anchored, not enough to feel trapped or contained. Fleur wishes for an eloquent way to articulate: "With gender stuff."

"Oh." Tonks sounds lightly surprised, but Fleur reads the tone as being unsure what they were about to hear, not being shocked by 'gender stuff' specifically. "Do you want to talk about it? Or be distracted from it?" Tonks asks, like the mental health champ they are.

"I really don't want to talk about it." 

"Okay—"

Fleur cuts Tonks off before they can finish being sensibly agreeable. "But I think I need to."

Tonks gives Fleur another squeeze for good measure, then drops their arms to allow Fleur to swivel around. Fleur does, and Tonks links their hands together and pulls them over to a bench. "Do you want to do this here? Go back to the hotel?"

Fleur gestures to the empty room. "This is fine."

Tonks nods encouragingly, exactly like the person who has heard 1001 disclosures in the wee hours of the night, coccooned in spaces they purposefully curate for queer people to feel safe enough to be themselves.

"Now that I have said I need to talk, I cannot think of what to say," Fleur admits.

"You don't have to say anything."

"I feel like—" Fleur tries, taking heart in the absolute absence of pressure, "—like over the last… while… I feel, more and more pronounced, that I do not… I am not sure of the best word… resonate? with... womanness." Fleur's stomach drops through the floor, landing somewhere amongst the pointed shoes below.

Tonks presses their lips together and nods a few times.

"Which makes me feel terrible because I fucking know there is no one version of womanness. We meet all kinds of women all the time and I kind of feel like a bad feminist for losing my gravitation to that label. But then I also have been thinking so much— _so much_ —about whether or not I ever did gravitate towards it, or whether social training sort of launched me towards it and I got stuck in its pull without realising I had a choice about it." Fleur takes a breath, laughs grimly. "I am not making any sense. I sound like a teenager's journal of angst poetry."

"You are making _perfect_ sense." Fleur expects Tonks's validation, but it still feels so fucking good. If Fleur were a crier, there'd be tears. Tonks lets a few beats pass between them, ceding the floor to Fleur, who doesn't take it. So Tonks proceeds: "I've seen a lot of hero youths online talking about how a huge benefit of the interwebz and social media is how the more folks talk about transness and fluidity and all varieties of gender nonconformity, the more they realised that the labels they'd been assigned didn't fit. Not everyone just _knows_ from always."

"It is just so embarrassing not to have this shirt sorted out yet. Circe's cervix, I am in my forties!" 

Tonks doesn't bother stifling a laugh at ol' Circe before proceeding. "However you're feeling is valid, obv. But, for what it's worth, there's no right age to realise things, to work them out, or to come out. About anything. You know that." Tonks bumps their shoulder lightly into Fleur's.

Fleur never doubts that it's possible to rise higher in love with Tonks, but wow—there's some definite insight to be had here on why so many baby queers gravitate to Tonks when they're coming out.

"You are coming out, yeah? I don't want to presume."

"I suppose." Fleur sighs and looks at the floor. 

"Do you want to say more about what you're supposing?"

"I do not even fucking know what to say, if I am honest."

Fleur looks back up at Tonks, who is nodding in implicit understanding, as though whatever Fleur is feeling or is confused about is normal and fine and to be expected. It really, really helps.

"I feel like, when I stand next to you, how can I have a queer gender?"

"Expand on that," Tonks prompts like a BBC interviewer and leans forward, propping their chin up on the hand they still have linked with Fleur's.

Fleur takes a breath and thinks. "You are the most famous queer person in magical Britain—Europe, probably."

"Why thank you." Tonks sketches a little bow from their spot on the bench.

"You are so visibly genderfluid. People who do know know you assume."

Tonks says nothing, just nods, like they get it. Fleur looks away, then looks back at them. They probably _do_ get it.

"And I…" Fleur gestures to the body sitting next to Tonks, round with breasts and hips and arse, to the face etched with western conventions of feminised beauty.

"How are you feeling about your body?" Tonks asks, and Fleur loves them for trusting that Fleur will not answer, will stop the conversation, if needed.

"Fine, actually," Fleur answers. "Well, no..." Fleur sighs. "I do not know. My body is not the problem per se. But I am uncomfortable about how people read it. Does that make sense? How they look at me and gender me female automatically. It feels false for me." Tonks nods in a gesture of active listening. "And I am finding it increasingly painful to refer to myself as she, her, woman. It feels like it does not fit."

"Mmm. I'd noticed you'd started referring to yourself in neutral terms a while back, but I assumed you were using non-gendered language more generally, so I didn't think to ask. I'm sorry."

"Do not apologise for what I didn't tell you sooner."

For a few seconds, all's quiet in the room aside from the white noise of temperature and humidity control devices.

Eventually, Tonks breaches the silence. "So, if I understand what you've said, you've been grappling with realising you don't identify as a woman?"

Put it so plainly, so simply, it takes Fleur's breath away.

"Yes," Fleur's voice is quiet. "But I do not know what that means. I feel like I am stuck in a negative space between identity categories. It makes me feel as though it is all in my head."

"You're gaslighting yourself," Tonks observes.

Yikes. "Maybe. I don't feel like a woman. But I don't feel like a man either. I don't feel like the best of both worlds."

"Could be you're the best of neither."

Fleur feels steamrolled by the possibility. What is there to say to that?

They sit in silence for several minutes, just holding hands, until another visitor finally enters the room. 

"Come with me," Tonks pulls Fleur up off of the bench and out into the corridor. They whip out their mobile and after a moment, hand it to Fleur. "Hit play."

Fleur does. It's the "Shut up, Wesley!" fanvid. Fleur bursts out laughing and lets Tonks, by way of the montage, be a serious spirit-lifter.

*

They leave the Bata before seeing the rest of the museum. Fleur needs to be moving, so Tonks proposes walking to their next stop along streets where they see streetcar tracks, still desperately hoping to glimpse The Stick. The mission is a nice distraction.

They walk to Spadina and then follow the tracks down to College, sadly, without a Stick in sight. But it feels good to Fleur to be moving, like getting the stress hormones from their conversation out of the body. 

Walking hand in hand, Fleur and Tonks both startle when a cat bursts out of a garbage bin next to someone's fence up ahead. As the cat struts down the pavement towards them, chewing something it's impossible to identify, Fleur mentally scolds the owners for letting it roam free next to a busy street. "Oscar the cat friend!" Tonks hustles Fleur towards it. 

As they approach, though, Fleur realises it's not a cat. Fleur stops fully and Tonks gasps and genuinely jumps backwards, loses their balance, and takes Fleur with them down to the ground. "Rac!" 

The raccoon draws closer, hissing and looking decidedly aggro. 

"What do we do?" Tonks asks. "Play dead, or make ourselves bigger than it?"

"We _are_ bigger than it!" Fleur stands and hauls Tonks back up by one arm.

"Didn't you fight a furious mother rac in the Tri-Wiz or something?" Tonks asks, stepping back from the approaching animal.

"Me?! You were an Auror! And it's just a raccoon!" Fleur teases, but doesn't actually feel like it's _just_ anything. Fleur wants to get far, far away from it. 

Salvation comes in the form of a street car. In the middle of Spadina, one cruises just a little ways past Fleur, Tonks, and the raccoon, and comes to a halt. Some passengers get off and Fleur can't help bursting into uproarious peals of laughter as the raccoon diverts from its route towards them, marches up to the car, and—no shit—gets onto the car. With the raccoon on board, the car pulls away and continues down the street, the muffled, alarmed cries of passengers making Fleur and Tonks double over, clutching one another to avoid taking another tumble.

When they're both able to stay upright, they wipe away their tears of mirth. It takes a few minutes for them to stop bursting back into laughter every few seconds, but despite run-ins with killer urban mammals, all told it doesn't take long to arrive at the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy, especially since the freezing temperature has them moving double time. What's more, the run-in with certain death has weirdly lifted Fleur's spirits still further. Sure, Fleur is hardly feeling 100% right now, but a zany anecdote is always good for the soul, as is walking arm in arm with a partner who's a damn rockstar at life-ing. 

Of course, it also doesn't hurt that they're heading to book heaven.

"Fleur!" Tonks busts into their most Puffly grin upon reading the sign. "A library for you!"

Tonks literally skips inside, more game than ever to share in Fleur's nerd jollies and, no doubt, to keep Fleur's mind from spiralling after the disclosure.

They spend a couple of hours browsing books and graphic novels, pulp, and art; the part of Fleur that Tonks calls Slytherin legitimately considers defacing a first edition of _Dune_ , but Fleur quickly moves on to spend several minutes flipping reverently through the pages of a particularly exquisite copy of _Parable of the Sower_.

High on books, Fleur flashes the librarians at the desk a 'Live Long and Prosper' sign as they leave and head for more.

Walking along College in the hopes of a Stick sighting, they finally head up to Bloor to check out The Monkey's Paw. The store is filled with all manner of bizarre printed materials from the twentieth century. Tonks and Fleur each choose a shelf at random and start browsing. After an hour or so, Fleur's selected _The Importance of Wearing Clothes_ and a nineteenth-century personal scrap book with creepy textile scraps sewn in. Tonks arrives at the register with _Baton Twirling: The Fundamentals of an Art and a Skill_ and _Pet Names_. 

"I thought this one had, you know, gross pet names for lovers, but it's actually pets' names! Fleur, would you like it if I called you 'Boniface the wolfhound?' On a related note, where do you stand on getting a guppy and naming it Florabelle?"

Fleur snorts. "Did you get any hard currency? I need a 'twonie'," Fleur places air quotes around the term, "for the Biblio-Mat."

Tonks digs into their pockets and pulls out a tenner. "Can you break this?" they ask the teller.

Five twonies in hand, Fleur heads to the Biblio-Mat, puts one of the coins through the slot, and waits to receive a random book from the bespoke vending machine. After a pleasing little buzzing noise, the machine drops Fleur's book down the chute. Fleur tries not to hope for some kind of crisis-dispelling happenstance in the form of _Fundamentals of Gender Parsing_ or _Twelve Fail Safe Ways to Figure Yourself Out_. As it turns out, the machine dispenses _Bread Sculpture: The Edible Art._ Fleur shrugs, determines not to read anything more into that than that bread is great, and pops it into the rucksack.

Fleur and Tonks leave the bookstore. Time has gotten away from them, and their Portkey looms on the horizon, but they rush to the subway and make their way to Glad Day Bookshop in the Gay Village on the other side of town. 

Inside, Fleur browses and gets another mood boost when Erasure comes on over the speakers while Tonks chit chats with one of the apparently many owners, praising the pronouns buttons and thanking them for the large order. Despite spending an afternoon bookworming out and already having added five books to the weekend rucksack, Fleur flicks through the titles, yearning for each and every one. As the time of their Portkey draws nearer, however, Fleur settles on six books by authors in Canada and has a fleeting thought of how nice it would be to be forced to fly home just to have the time to read _Jonny Appleseed_ straightaway. Vowing internally to put it at the top of the ever-growing TBR, Fleur joins Tonks where they're leaning on the counter, still chatting. 

"Ready?"

"Ready, Freddie." Tonks pushes themself up from the counter and introduces Fleur while Fleur settles up. The clerk asks if Fleur is from Québéc, and when Tonks says "no, but someone from Montréal told me we have to get over there for the poutine," adding that Fleur is French, there is nary a pronoun. Fleur's heart grows five or six sizes as they bid the owner farewell with a final "Thank you!" Tonks takes Fleur's offered arm, and they head to catch a train back to Pearson Airport, Tonks lamenting all the while that they didn't manage to get that elusive photo of The Stick.

*

At the airport, Tonks and Fleur clear security and customs and have a seat as they wait for agents of The State to allocate them a highly official piece of trash that will send them home.

The only thing that tops Fleur's zest for eating is reading, and with their biblio-crawl over, hunger makes itself known. While Tonks watches their rucksacks, Fleur uses the leftover 'twonies' to buy Smarties, two Coffee Crisps, an Aero, and a Skor bar to munch on and rank in descending order of tastiness as they wait. Tonks—to Fleur's utter lack of surprise—favours the effervescent Aero, while Fleur swears by the tooth-achingly sweet caffeination of the Coffee Crisp. Fleur nearly chips a fucking tooth on the Skor and they agree it's a dark magical object.

When they've downed the sugary airport rations, Fleur wonders aloud whether to fall straight into bed when they get home or have a cheeky beans on toast first. 

There aren't a lot of magical people going transatlantic late on a Sunday afternoon, it seems, so Fleur says, still quietly, "Sorry about spoiling our outing earlier."

"Apology not accepted," Tonks says. "Nothing spoilt. No vibes were harshed in the self-expression of Fleur Delacour. Actually…" A smug smile takes over Tonks's face and they grab their rucksack off the floor and unzip it. From inside, amongst the rank, sweaty clothes they danced in all night, Tonks pulls something small. It fits between their thumb and index. Fleur recognises one of the pronoun pins from last night and feels a wave of adrenaline at the idea that Tonks is about to offer…anything.

Fleur takes the pin and looks at it and performs a full, instantaneous, internal dressing down for even having the passing thought that Tonks would presume they know what's the best fit for someone else.

The pin is black and its white text reads: _no pronouns, just Fleur._

"I fixed it to have your name when I went to the loo before customs." Tonks gives Fleur a look when they say _fixed_ that clearly communicates: with _magic_. "Obviously you don't have to wear it, but, you know. It's one of those gesture things." They smile hesitantly, waiting for Fleur's response.

Fleur smiles back and pins it to the voluminous, drapey black top Tonks calls Fleur's signature travel ensemble. It's comfortable as hell.

"I am not sure I am ready to wear it around others yet…people we know, I mean. I know I'd scold another person for saying this, but it truly does make me feel…behind? not to have figured all of this out yet. I—"

Tonks is normally the first person to let someone ramble through their feelings, but they grab Fleur's face in both hands, lean in, and kiss Fleur's nose. 

"Your timeline is your own. Now, next week, never. But thank you for telling _me_. I never want to misgender you again. And, at the risk of centring myself here, I'm sorry I did before. I know I didn't know, but I'm still sorry."

Fleur looks down at the pin again and brushes noses with Tonks. "So," Fleur says, letting out a quick, heavy, cleansing breath. Tonks looks ready to receive any information no matter how fraught or intense. "I am leaning towards beans on toast. How tired are you?"


End file.
